I sent the following story was sent to the Boston Globe.

[Howard I Cohen <hic (Howard I Cohen)>]

The following is a true story.

Buzios, Brazil

On Oct 31st., 1994, at approximately 10:30 am, local time, Mr. William 
Riseman Jr., aged 48, of William Riseman Associates, Inc.,  74 Appleton 
Street, Boston, invited to make two professional presentations in Brazil, 
was swept off a rock into the Atlantic Ocean, disappeared and is presumed 
dead by drowning.

Riseman an architect and a very prominent local VR/Computer Graphics expert, 
had been invited to give two presentations in Brazil to the II Mostra 
Atlantic de Realidade Virtual, under the auspices of the Centro Cultural 
Candido Mendes. One in Rio de Janeiro during the week of October 24-30, 1994 
and the second in Porto Alegre, a major city in Southern Brazil, during 
November 4-6, 1994. On the day of the accident Riseman, who was staying at 
the home of his host, Candido Jose Mendes de Almeida in Buzios, a coastal 
area, was walking along a rocky bluff with a fellow presenter, a Mr. Charles 
Ostman of California, and taking pictures. Apparently there was a section of 
rocks at the bottom of the bluff that was particularly scenic.  Candido 
claims to have warned him of the danger of that area.  At any rate, Riseman 
decided to go there to take some pictures.  Supposedly, while he was lying 
on one of the rocks taking a photograph, a large wave swept him into the 
water. Ostman claims that he saw Riseman floating and that Riseman waved. 
Since Ostman couldn't swim, he rushed back to the house for help. The 
elapsed time was apparently about 15 minutes. When help arrived, Riseman had 
disappeared. The coast guard was contacted and the search began both on the 
sea and on land. Later, helicopters arrived. 

About 4:00 p.m. Boston time, Ms. Alice d'Entremont of Boston, a business 
colleague of Riseman, was notified of the accident. She immediately 
contacted people there and emailed the following to me. 

"At that time when I talked with the people at Buzios, helicopters had been 
brought in.  Monday the surf was rough.  The search continued Tuesday with, 
supposedly additional helicopters and boats. At some point, Scuba divers 
were brought in.  Wednesday, when I again talked with Candido to ascertain 
that the search was being continued, he assured me that he was staying in 
Buzios to keep the search on.  Wednesday at noon, Walter Riseman {Bill's 
younger brother} and several other family members came to my house and I put 
Walter in touch with Candido.  Tuesday I had contacted The US Embassy in Rio 
to inquire what was going on.  I had been given the name of the officer in 
charge of the investigation by one of the organizers of the conference who 
had initially contacted me Monday.  His name is David Connell.  I gave them 
Walter's name and phone number.  They said they could not discuss the matter 
until the official report was complete.  Thursday morning David Connell 
called my house because he had been told that Walter had left Maine and was 
in Boston.  He told me that officially he could only talk with Walter 
directly, but did tell me without any details that the search had been 
terminated.  Walter says that there is some sort of notice that has been 
passed around to the fisherman of that area so that they could keep an eye 
out for Bill."

d'Entremont went on to say:

"I have not been able to get a detailed analysis from anyone and am piecing 
the story by uncovering layers of details.  In the meantime, I am plagued 
with the thought that Bill could be marooned somewhere and do not know if 
indeed everything that could be done, has or is being done.  The issue of 
cost seems to exist even though, it is obviously being soft-pedaled.
The problem, I repeat, is that if the family has given up hope that Bill may 
be alive, it makes it hard for those of us outside the family to be terribly 
effective.  I am doing what I can to keep the search for Bill going while 
trying to be respectful of the family's grief, shock, and life. I maintain 
that we will not get the real picture unless we go to Brazil. I've even 
thought that we should offer a reward to the fishermen to increase their 
interest in this search, if this is all that can be afforded. I am trying to 
remain collected, logical and sane but this situation is making me crazy. 
Any help you can contribute is great!!!"

Walter, Riseman's younger brother and executor of his estate has talked to 3 
different State Department people and still does not have their cooperation 
to travel to Brazil to meet with Brazilian officials, clarify the matter of 
a Death Certificate, take custody of several very expensive pieces of 
computer equipment which Riseman brought for his presentations and Brazilian 
Customs officials are ready to release, as well as visit the site and talk 
to Riseman's colleagues and host. He feels that US Embassy people should 
help with procedural details for the trip, such as providing support through 
a chaperone or interpreter, or travel guide, etc. as well as local travel 
and appointment arrangements. Walter, who is holding an open plane ticket to 
Brazil,  points out that he has never been to Brazil and speaks neither 
Spanish, nor Portuguese. He also spoke to Sen. Mitchell's office in Portland 
several times. But to no avail.

On November 16, 1994 I send an email to a Mr. Edward Fitzsimmons, 
<fitzsimmons@ostp.eop.gov>, who is supposedly on VP Gore's staff. The hope 
was that a member of the Executive Branch could have more impact on the US 
State Department than Sen. Mitchell's office. Either he never received my 
letter, on chose to ignore it. He simply never acknowledged it.

Riseman was a successful architect who designed movie theatres using 
Computer Aided techniques. Several years ago he turned his creative talents 
to the field of Archaeology by working collaboratively with members of the 
staff of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts' Department of Egyptian and Near 
Eastern Art, particularly Timothy Kendall, a world renowned Egyptologist and 
an Associate Curator to the MFA. With Kendall's knowledge of ancient Egypt 
and Riseman's computer skills they built a very precise, extremely detailed 
and magnificantly rendered 3 dimensional computer model of Jebel Barkal, a 
famous 1500 BCE sanctuary in southern Egypt, now Sudan, near the Nubian 
border. The modeled site, reproduced with architectural precision, contained 
19 buildings covering half a square kilometer, including 8 temples and 3 
palaces. In recent years, working with other archaeological data from the 
MFA and the Getty Museum, he created an entire Egyptian structure database 
which includes the Mastabas of the Western Cemetery in Giza, and the 
Fortress of Buhen near the second cataract on the southern Nile, also dating 
to 1500 BCE. Today the area is under water as Lake Nassar. His images are 
true 3-dimensional representations which, as well as shapes, reproduce the 
textures, inscriptions and magnificant colors of the originals. He extended 
his deatailed models to become dramatic animations and eventually Virtaul 
Reality worlds permitting you to literally tour an ancient site. He 
envisioned an Educational Virtual Reality transferred via Internet to 
classrooms around the world. It was this work that he was demonstrating in 
Brazil. 

To many people in the Boston area and amongst museum people throughout the 
world he was building a reputation as a brilliant, imaginative and extremely 
creative artist/technologist. He had presented his prototype 
Education-Museum concept frequently. Locally he presented to and was 
enthusiastically received by such groups as the Boston Computer Society, The 
Boston Society of Architects, The Society for the Preservation of New 
England Antiquities (SPNEA), The Museum of Afro-American History, and on the 
morning of his trip to Brazil he presented at a meeting of the New England 
Chapter of the Computer Museum Network. He had been scheduled to present his 
work at the recent Atlantic Rim Congress here in Boston, as well as the 
BUILD BOSTON '94 Symposia and a special showing at a meeting of members of 
the Getty Trust, the American Society of Learned Societies, and the 
Coalition for Networked Information, all attending a National Symposium on 
Proposed Arts and Humanities Policies for the National Information 
Infrastructure (NII). He was also scheduled to present to the Sarasota Film 
Festival in Florida. He wished to make the content of museums more 
accessible to classrooms by use of technology and was working closely with 
such people as Katherine Jones-Garmil, Documentation Manager at the Peabody 
Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of Harvard University in Cambridge, and 
Dr. Donald Sanders editor of the Art and Architecture Thesaurus [AAT] for 
the J. Paul Getty Trust Art History Information Program.

Besides his Brother Walter, Riseman is survived by his step mother, Marilyn, 
and a step son, Shawn. His family has arranged for a memorial service in 
Boston on Dec. 7th, 2 pm at the Ritz Carlton, Rabbi David Neiman of Temple 
Beth Zion, Brookline, retired Professor of Biblical History, Boston College, 
will officiate. 

Through his colleagues at the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) a Riseman 
Trust Account with Fleet Bank has been established. and if you wish to 
donate to this fund in lieu of flowers , please make a deposit at any Fleet 
Bank into account number 9364874201. Mr. James Blauch of the BSA is the 
trustee of the account and Bill's brother Walter is the beneficiary.

If I can provide any addition information please contact me. 

Howard I. Cohen, Boston Computer Society, Director, CAD-SIG 
17 Bishop's Forest Drive
Waltham, MA 617-647-5418
email: hic@world.std.com

Other contacts who are Cc'ed on this document are:

Ms Alice d'Entremont,
120 Fulton Street
Boston, MA 617-367-3380
email: amde@world.std.com

Maria Byington, Executive Producer
Centro Cultural Candido Mendes
Rua da Assembleia, No. 10, Room 616
Rio, Brazil 20119-900
Tel: 5521-531-1588
Fax: 5521 531-2393
email: vrinrio@ax.ibase.org.br

Dr. Donald Sanders, J. Paul Getty Trust
Greenfield, MA 
email: dsanders@AAT.getty.edu

NOTE: Walter Riseman's address is available through Alice d'Entremont.